Tag Archives: wine

First Tries at Bottle Slumping

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Yes, I’m firing up the kiln again.

Years ago, in the autumn of 2014, when my building was first built but my home inside it was barely started, I took up yet another hobby to keep me busy while I waited for my wasband to get his head out of his ass and pay me what he owed me from our divorce settlement. That’s when I started doing “warm glass” work — specifically, making things like Christmas tree ornaments and jewelry with melted down, repurposed wine bottle glass.

Some Backstory

Star Ornament
Here is one of the Christmas tree ornaments I created from broken bottle glass in my tabletop kiln back in December 2014. The blue glass is from a sake bottle.

I bought a tiny desktop kiln and tinier molds to fit inside it. I then acquired countless used wine bottles from the wineries in the area, broke them into tiny pieces, and melted down the pieces in the molds. Some of the resulting items — especially the Christmas tree ornaments — came out rather nice. But beyond that, I was disappointed, mostly because of problems with devitrification. Simply described, the rough edges of the broken glass, when melted down, prevented the final product from having a smooth, shiny surface.

I did all kinds of experiments to get rid of the unsightly marks and finally concluded that they’d have to be polished out. I bought a lap grinder as a sort of universal polishing tool — I was also trying to turn wine bottles into drinking glasses and needed to polish the rims — but it never worked the way I needed it to. I got discouraged and, as I usually do, set it aside and picked up another project to keep me busy. In this case, it was wiring my entire home prior to professional installation of plumbing, insulation, and drywall.

That took me through the winter and into the spring of 2015. I moved into my home and continued working on projects there: finishing my deck, trimming out the doors and windows, finishing up the loft. With flying work and an active social life, I didn’t have much time for playing with broken bottles and a kiln, especially since the results were so frustrating. Yet sometime around then, I bought a bigger kiln. I think I was considering larger glass projects, but don’t remember. The kiln arrived, I assembled it on a wheeled platform I built for it so it would be easy to move around my shop, and I promptly forgot about it.

Last autumn, before departing for my winter trip south, I finally got around to trying out the “new” kiln. I was able to set up several molds inside it. It took a few tries to get the firing schedule right and when I did, I was satisfied with the glass fusing of the items I put into the molds. But I hadn’t licked the devitrification problem, so I wondered why I was even bothering.

Of course, devitrification would not be an issue if I purchased glass specifically made for fusing in a kiln. It was available online from a variety of sellers and would make beautiful pieces. But that wasn’t my goal. My goal was to take garbage — wine bottles — and turn it into something desirable. And I was failing — at least to make pieces up to my own standards which, admittedly, are sometimes a bit too high to achieve.

The Jewelry Connection

Turquoise Pendant
Kingman turquoise with bronze wrapped in sterling silver and copper. I made and sold this pendant last Friday.

In January, I took up wire-wrapping gemstones to make pendants and earrings (so far). I developed a real knack for this and quickly developed my own style. I’ve sold a few dozen pieces so far and haven’t gotten bored with it yet. I think it’s because of the variety of stones and the new techniques I can experiment with. And having people praise me for my work — and actually pay me to own a piece — is a real motivator.

I occasionally set up a vendor table at Pybus Public Market on Fridays or Saturdays. (Last Friday I sold five pieces, including one that I’d just made less than an hour before.) One of the other vendors does art glass work. She uses the kind of glass she buys specifically for fusing and turns out some wonderful bowls and plates and other items. I asked her if she ever makes cabochons — after all, why not wrap a “stone” made of glass? She said she could but even after prodding her a few times, she hasn’t delivered any. I told her about my kiln and how it was nearly brand new and hardly used. She said she might have a friend interested in buying it.

I’ve been shedding a lot of the things I’ve owned for years that I lugged to Washington when I moved. I had too many things taking up space in my garage that I knew, deep down inside, I’d never use. The microwave from my old house was the first to go. An old Sony television, still in its box, went next. Both of those went for free. But I also sold my old desk, curtain rods, luggage, and all kinds of household items I packed from September 2012 to May 2013 while I was waiting for the court date for my divorce. (Honestly, if my wasband hadn’t delayed the court date, I would have had less time to pack and would have left a ton of stuff behind.) My telescope and a set of cast iron cookware were the most recent things to go and they each brought in a surprising amount of money. Maybe it was time to sell the “new” kiln.

Or maybe not. There was still one other thing I wanted to try: bottle slumping.

Bottle Slumping 101

I’ve been to a lot of arts and crafts shows. My good friend Janet is an artist and I’ve visited her at many of the shows where she sells her work. One of the craft items that occasionally appears at these shows is wine bottles that have been flattened in a kiln to make a plate. The technique is referred to as bottle slumping.

While my original kiln is too tiny to slump anything bigger than a shot glass, my new kiln can handle a standard sized wine bottle if I place it diagonally across the floor of the kiln. Yes, that means I can only do one at a time, but it was still worth a try. The way I saw it, if I didn’t use the damn kiln, I should sell it. I needed a reason to keep it. Making something desirable out of garbage was my goal. I still had literally hundreds of wine bottles to work with. (I had actually started disposing them in my recycle bin at the rate of 3 cases every two weeks but with 12 cases gone, I’d barely made a dent in what I had accumulated. When you have a lot of storage space, you find a way to fill it.)

I did research online. Using a kiln isn’t as easy as just turning it on and waiting for it to finish. You have to find and program in an appropriate firing schedule. Schedules vary based on what you’re trying to achieve, what kiln you’re using, and what kind of glass you put in it. So right from the get-go, I knew I’d be doing a lot of experiments.

I should also mention here that there are two ways to slump bottles: with and without a mold. I didn’t have a bottle slumping mold so, by necessity, I’d have to slump without one. That got me worried about glass sticking to the bottom of my kiln. I had Thin Fire paper — it’s a thin sheet of paper that turns to a white powder in the firing process and prevents melted glass from sticking to whatever is under it — but I didn’t know how much the glass would melt and whether it would get into the corners of my kiln. Still, I was ready to give it a go.

First Try

In case you’re wondering, here’s the first schedule I tried:

SegRampTempHold
1500°1100°10 min
2250°1300°0 min
3300°1425°10 min

Let cool naturally.

So the other day, I programmed in a simple three-segment schedule, leveled the kiln — I use it in my car garage, which is gently sloped toward the door — put a bottle in there, closed the lid, and started it up.

The other thing many folks don’t realize about using a kiln is that it isn’t fast. The schedule I used would ramp up the temperature from my garage temperature to 1420°F over a matter of hours. Cooling would take even longer. I had dinner guests that night and the kiln was still too hot to open before they arrived at 5 PM. Although it might have been ready before I went to bed at 10 PM, I’d forgotten about it. But I remembered in the morning and went down to check it.

And I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

The bottle had melted nearly flat right in place, without seeping into the corners of the kiln. I say “nearly” flat because the bottle’s bottom, which is thicker than the rest of the bottle, had sort of collapsed and folded to make a lump. Although the neck of the bottle had collapsed, there were two air pockets inside. And when I washed the kiln paper power off the bottle, some water got inside along the neck.

The side that had rested on the floor of the kiln would be the top of the plate. It was flat with the texture of the bottom of the kiln, which I rather liked. When I set it on the countertop that way, however, the bulge at the bottom of the bottle lifted that end up, resulting in a plate that wasn’t level.

First Try Bottle Slumping
Here’s my first try. You can clearly see the big air pockets inside the bottle.

So I had three problems to resolve in my next test: get the air pockets out, close up the neck better, and come up with a way to level the resulting plate.

Second Try

I tackled the first two problems first and managed to resolve one of them. I decided that the reason there were air pockets and that the neck allowed water to get in was that I hadn’t melted the glass enough. I’d try again, but this time raise the highest temperature to 1450.

I reprogrammed the kiln, set another clean bottle in there, and got it started.

I do need to mention here that when I say “clean bottle” I mean completely clean and dry glass bottle, inside and out. I had to remove the labels by soaking in hot water for more than an hour, scrape away adhesive residue, and then use 90% rubbing alcohol to get the last little bits of glue off. Then I used hot water and a lot of agitation to rinse the inside of the bottle at least four times. Then I had to stand the bottle up on its neck in a place where the water would drain out and the bottle would eventually dry. This prep work is, quite frankly, a pain in the ass. But I do them two or three at a time so there’s always another bottle ready to slump.

I went about my day, running errands and doing chores around the house.

The schedule took another few hours to run and hours to cool. Finally, by mid afternoon the kiln was down to 200°. I opened it up but wasn’t foolish enough to touch the bottle, which would also be 200°. I did get a good look at it, though and it looked better. One of the air pockets was gone and the neck was nicely closed up, but there was still an air pocket right below the neck.

Second Try Slump
This is my second try. The neck had closed up nicely, but there’s still a good sized air bubble right below the neck. You’re looking at the flat side of the bottle.

When the kiln temperature got down to 90°F, I touched the bottle and found it cool enough to remove. It was better than the first one, but not quite “perfect” yet.

Third Try

Bottle in Kiln
Here’s the third try bottle inside the kiln. Note the tiny piece of shelf leg positioned under the neck. It’s unfortunate that I can only do one bottle at a time; once I get the schedule perfected, it would be nice to do two at a time.

In the meantime, I’d called the art glass lady from Pybus to get some advice. What I really wanted to know is whether I had to keep using the kiln paper or whether I could just use kiln wash at the bottom of my kiln. I would quickly run out of kiln paper if I used a fresh sheet for each firing and it isn’t something I can buy locally. She told me she uses the same stuff I was using and recommended it. She offered to sell me some, but I didn’t want to bother her with that. I also told her what I was doing and mentioned the air bubbles. She suggested ramping up at a slower rate and holding it longer at the 1300° temperature.

So I grabbed another bottle — which happened to be a slightly different style — and stuck it in the kiln. At this point, I’d also decided to try propping up the neck of the bottle so that when it slumped, it would make a raised edge that would (hopefully) balance out the folded ridge of the bottle bottom. The trick was finding something to prop it up on. You can’t use just anything when you’re heating it to 1450°F. I poked around my broken glass fusing supplies, which were all neatly organized in a rolling cart in my shop, and stumbled upon the shelf legs for my tiny desktop kiln. I wrapped one of them in kiln paper, laid it on its side, and stuck it under the bottle’s neck, about 3 inches from the top. Then I reprogrammed the kiln controller again following the glass lady’s advice, closed it up, and got it started.

Finishing a Product

While the kiln did its thing, I played around with my first experiment. I wanted to make a branded cheese plate that local wineries might use or sell. I had some old wine labels from a friend’s winery and stuck it on the bottle. I then mixed up a batch of food-safe clear coat that I’d purchased earlier in the day, leveled the bottle-plate on a work surface, and poured the mixture over the label and flat side of the bottle. I soon realized that I’d mixed up too much and spent some time dealing with drips as the mixture self-leveled, resulting in a thin coat over the top of the plate.

It was tough to resist the urge to touch it, but I managed. According to the package instructions, I’ll need to wait at least 48 hours before I attempt to test the surface for durability. Remember, if this is a cheese plate, it should be able to stand up to the work of a cheese knife on it.

First Try with Label and Coating
This is my first try bottle with my first try label and coating. This is good enough for me to use, but not good enough for sale. Still, I’m on the right track.

Third Try Results

This morning, after making my coffee — I have my priorities straight — I went down to fetch the third try. I felt a moment of panic when I thought that little piece of kiln shelf leg was stuck but it came loose without much effort. The result was a squared out bump in the neck of the bottle which forms a sort of leg when the bottle is set with the flat side up.

Trouble is, it’s too high. Now the plate tilts down the other way. That’s easy enough to fix; all I need to do is trim the shelf leg — which I think I can do — to make it flatter for the next try.

Third Try Bottle Slumping
Here’s my third try. There are fewer air bubbles inside the bottle and there’s now a leg to hold up the neck end. Trouble is, the leg is too tall and I really want a bottle with no bubbles.

As for the air pockets in the bottle, they are greatly reduced. But I’m not convinced the firing schedule fixed that. This bottle had a different shape with a more gently angled transition from bottle body to neck. Perhaps that’s why air wasn’t trapped inside the bottle when it melted? The only way to know for sure is to use the same schedule with a bottle shaped like one of the ones I originally used.

Fourth Try

In case you’re wondering, here’s the schedule I’m trying now:

SegRampTempHold
1500°500°12 min
2500°750°12 min
3600°1100°10 min
4200°1300°20 min
5250°1475°10 min
69999°1100°60 min
7500°970°30 min
8120°750°20 min

Let cool naturally.

My fourth try is in the kiln right now. I took the same shape bottle (since that’s what was prepped), cut the shelf leg so it would be shorter, and positioned everything in the kiln. And then, rather than modifying the simple schedule I’d been using, I reprogrammed it entirely using the longer, more detailed schedule for bottle slumping that I’d found. My theory is that the slower ramp up and longer hold times will give the air in the bottles a better chance to escape, thus eliminating the pockets of air.

Kiln Controller
My kiln has a programmable controller which can store up to 6 user schedules.

Timing and Power Use

Keep in mind that each of these trials takes about 10 hours to complete. With only enough space for one bottle, I can only do two bottles a day — and that would require me to put the next one in each time I remove one. That’s not a huge deal for me; I’m here and once the schedule is set up just right, it is as easy as positioning a bottle and pushing a button on the kiln.

As for power usage, my kiln’s controller has the ability to calculate costs for me once I program in my kilowatt hour rate — which I just did. But I already know that the cost will be lower than what most people might think. Chelan County, where I live, supposedly has the second lowest electric rates in the country thanks to hydro and wind power: currently 2.7¢/kilowatt hour. (Compare that to 13.27¢/kilowatt hour where I lived in Arizona and 15.39¢/kilowatt hour where I lived in New Jersey.) The electric bill for my all electric house was only $25 last month. I’m thinking each firing might cost 25¢ to 50¢.

Goals

My final goal is to get a relatively level plate that can be used to serve cheese either as is directly from the kiln or with the application of a local winery label with a food safe clear coat to make it washable. I’d then sell those to local wineries for their use or make a product that they can sell to visitors. I can think of a few wineries that would be all over it once I got the kinks worked out.

Next time I’m at Pybus, I’ll bring a sample with me to see what kind of interest I get. Wish me luck.

The Eclipse Trip Days 5-7: The Palouse, Spokane, and Lake Roosevelt

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I finish up the trip in an uneventful way.

Although I tried hard to blog about each day of this trip shortly after it happened, I ran out of steam after my trip to Walla Walla. I think there are two reasons for this:

  • The rest of the trip wasn’t very interesting.
  • I spent a lot of time driving.

So I’ll just sum up here.

Day 5: Walla Walla to Palouse Falls

In the morning, I went down to the motel breakfast room for coffee, eggs, and sausage. They were all horrible. Honestly: I’d rather have a cold and stale Egg McMuffin than just about anything served up at a motel’s “free” breakfast. The eggs and sausage were so bad that even Penny wouldn’t eat them.

Later, after packing up and stowing my things back in the camper, we went for a walk on Main Street. I stopped at an outside cafe for a good cup of coffee. They sold fresh figs by the pound inside so I bought a pound to munch on later in my trip. I love figs so, as you might imagine, they didn’t last long.

I wanted to get some wine tasting in before I left town and to do that I had to wait until 11 AM. That’s when I hit Trust Cellars on 2nd Street. The hostess from the restaurant where I’d had dinner the night before had recommended it. I chatted with her father, the wine maker. I soon began to realize that very few Walla Walla area wineries grew their own grapes. The wine was pretty good, so I bought three bottles.

From there I went to lunch at a “southern comfort food” restaurant on Main Street called Whoopemup Hollow Cafe. I had a gumbo that was good but took half of it to go. I also had a peach cobbler for dessert that was excellent.

Then on to Walla Walla Airport. Yes, the airport. Believe it or not, quite a few of Walla Walla’s wineries have tasting rooms at the airport. It used to be an air force facility and there are lots of barracks and other buildings there dating back to the World War II era. Wineries have set up shop in these buildings. Although most are simply tasting rooms, a few also do production and/or bottling. I visited two tasting rooms next to each other, Buty Winery and Adamant Cellars. Buty had been recommended by the winemaker at Trust. Neither impressed me, but I bought a bottle from each because I always buy wine when I go tasting unless it’s simply undrinkable.

I’d wanted to hit a third winery at the airport but since I was so unimpressed with the first two and had drunk enough before 2 PM, I headed out instead.

My destination was Palouse Falls, where I hoped to spend the night. The drive would take me through much of the Palouse, a sort of mecca for photographers.

The Palouse is an area of Washington State with rolling hills covered with wheat. At a certain time of the year — July and early August, I expect — it’s an amazing place to photograph — well, rolling hills covered with green (July) or golden (August) wheat. Google Palouse Image and see what I mean.

I’ve always wanted to get out there in just the right season, but that season happens to be my cherry drying season when I’m pretty much stuck in the Wenatchee area. So I can’t see it until the wheat has already been harvested and it isn’t nearly as attractive.

The drive was a lot longer than I expected but was pleasant and scenic without the least bit of traffic. Honestly, I think that my road trips have spoiled me because of often travel to places on routes that no one else seems to use. The only time I experience traffic these days is when I’m driving through Wenatchee and have to deal with traffic lights.

Palouse Falls is a 200-foot waterfall on a place along the Palouse River where it cuts through a canyon and drops into a crack in the terrain. The visitor parking area is on a hillside overlooking the falls so most of the photos you see of the place look like aerial shots.

Palouse Falls from the Overlook
I shot this photo of Palouse Falls from the parking area not long after our arrival. The light was flat and never did get interesting during my stay.

Permit me to vent a little about No Fly zones for drones.

First of all, the No Drone rule at Palouse Falls is a Washington State law. It prevents people from launching a drone from within any State Park. Palouse Falls is a State Park.

What it doesn’t prevent is launching a drone from outside a State Park and flying it into that park. You see, the state doesn’t control the airspace. That’s the FAA’s jurisdiction. As I pilot, I know a lot about airspace and where it’s legal to fly. I also wrote a whole book about FAA Part 107, which lays out regulations for commercial drone flight that include regulations for non-commercial drone flight.

So there would be nothing stopping me from launching the drone from outside the park and flying it into the park as long as I didn’t fly over any people, kept it below 400 feet above ground level, and somehow — this is the tricky part — managed to keep it within sight at all times.

But do you want to know what’s really crazy? I could fly my helicopter into the park, which I guarantee would get a lot more notice than a half-pound drone, and maneuver it down into the canyon to get the shot I wanted. Legally. Again, the state does not control airspace and as long as my skids didn’t touch the ground inside the park I wouldn’t be breaking any laws.

Would I do that? What do you think?

It’s just an example of how absurd the rules can be — prohibiting one activity that could be a minor annoyance to a few people while allowing another activity that would definitely be a major annoyance to everyone within the park.

In reality, a better view of the falls would be from a drone hovering below the operator inside the canyon. In fact, it would be a perfect shot. But although I had my Mavic Pro with me, there were enough No Drone signs and other visitors to prevent a launch.

It was a gray day. Beyond the smoke-induced haze were clouds spreading rain in the area. I had a cell signal and could track a few rainstorms on radar. It rained a little on us, but not enough to get wet.

Tired from driving and still hoping to do some nighttime photography there, I paid for a campsite and parked next to it. This was apparently a no-no, as I learned from a ranger in the morning. He didn’t cite me but he did lecture me until I pretended to understand and agree with the absurd rule. Yes, tent campers are allowed to park in the lot and then pitch a tent on the grass and sleep in that. But no, people without tents can’t just park a car or truck in the lot and sleep in their car or truck. The rule had nothing to do with parking but everything to do with where you actually slept. If I had pitched a tent and slept in that, there would have been no problem. Next time, that’s what I’ll do.

Palouse Canyon
I think the view down the river from the falls is far more interesting than the falls themselves. Look at those layers of basalt!

In the meantime, the girl who’d parked near me and slept in her car, slipped away while I was being lectured. I didn’t turn her in. Heck, not everyone can afford camping gear. Why shouldn’t she be allowed to spend the night in a safe place, sheltered by her own vehicle? The rule was absurd and I certainly had no intention of helping them enforce it.

Of course, the sky never did clear up that night so I didn’t get the opportunity to do any night photography.

All in all, I consider my trip to Palouse Falls a disappointing bust.

Day 6: Palouse Falls to Lake Roosevelt via Spokane

My Palouse Falls experience left a bad taste in my mouth that I was eager to wash away. I figured that a trip to Trader Joe’s in Spokane to stock up on a few pantry goods followed up with lunch in my favorite Ethiopian restaurant — okay, so the only Ethiopian restaurant I know — would fix me right up.

But I did make one interesting stop along the way: Steptoe Butte.

Steptoe Butte is a granite outcropping that juts up out of those rolling hills. It’s tall so, as you might expect, they put antennas on it. There’s a road that spirals up to the top and offers unobstructed views in every direction.

View from Steptoe
The view from Steptoe Butte. I think this was north, but it could have been any direction. The view is pretty much the same no matter where you look: lots of rolling wheat fields.

Road to Steptoe Butte
When I say the road spirals, I’m not kidding. Here’s how it looked on Google Maps on the way down.

On the day of my visit, it was still hazy with smoke. It was mid afternoon and the light was flat. In other words, not the best conditions for landscape photography. Of course, camping isn’t allowed up there so anyone with the thought of spending the night after a golden hour evening shoot or before a golden hour morning shoot (or both) would be disappointed. No camping anywhere near there at all. Still, photographers make the long drive out there pretty regularly before dawn or back after sunset to be there at the right time. That wasn’t going to be me, at least not that day.

I came back down and continued on to Spokane. A little over an hour later, I was battling local traffic to maneuver my rig into a Trader Joe’s parking lot (which, fortunately, was part of a strip mall parking lot), shopping for things I can only get at TJ’s (if you like sardines, their sardines in olive oil are the best), and then making my way to Queen of Sheeba Ethiopian Cuisine on the Spokane River (great food).

Then I faced the option of ending my trip by making the 3-1/2 hour drive home or staying on the road one more day and finding an interesting campsite to spend the night. Not really fully decided either way, I found a few potential overnight destinations on the map that were also on the way home. If I found a spot I liked, I’d stop. Otherwise, I’d drive home.

I wound up along Lake Roosevelt, a very large lake on the Columbia River created by the Grand Coulee Dam. I’ve flown over it a few times and it’s the kind of place I’d really like to spend more time exploring, preferably with a boat or even a houseboat.

It was late Thursday afternoon, and the first campground I stopped at, Keller Ferry Campground, was crowded with loud RVers and their loud families. I almost backed into a campsite that was not much more than a glorified parking space in an asphalt lot with a picnic table on the grass nearby. But I knew I’d hate it and I hate paying for things I hate. So I pulled out and continued on my way.

The second campground, Spring Canyon, which was nearly all the way to Grand Coulee, was much more pleasant. Lake Roosevelt is a National Recreation Area and this campground was managed by the park service. The other was managed by a concessionaire and you can really tell the difference. The sites were on a hill with views of the lake. The spots were spread out a bit with lots of shade but little underbrush. I drove around and finally found an open spot that just happened to be designated as handicapped. A sign said that if it was still available after 6 PM, anyone could have it for one night. (Apparently, handicapped campers need to get where they’re going by 6.) It was 6:30. I only needed it for one night. I backed in, checked the level, was satisfied, and shut the engine.

It wasn’t until after I paid the $12 fee in the self-pay station that I regretted my choice. That’s when the white trash family in the site next to me went off the rails. They had three young sons aged 12 and below and one of them — I never could figure out which one — was misbehaving. That got dad yelling and threatening. Then mom joined in. Soon they were both yelling and cursing at each other and the kids. I have never heard a couple throw the F-bomb so loudly in public in front of their own kids and other kids as much as these two did. Fuck this fucking fucked up thing. Well, okay, not exactly that, but close. It reminded me too much of time spent with my ex-brother-in-law, a low-life loser who couldn’t complete a sentence without some form of the word fuck in it. But these people were doing it loudly in a campground full of families.

I wanted it to stop. I looked around for a ranger but didn’t see anyone. I was just starting to wonder if it was worth complaining to the campground host when they finally settled down. I think someone got sent into the tent. Mom settled into a chair to study her phone. Dad disappeared.

You don’t get scenes like this when you camp out in the middle of nowhere. You get the sound of nature — wind, birds, falling water, coyotes, squirrels high in trees chattering at small dogs on the ground — or no sound at all.

Anyway, things were fine after that. I ate reheated leftover Ethiopian food on the back steps of my camper, looking out over a campground that was settling down for the night. Someone nearby — maybe in the camper van? — started playing a flute and it sounded very nice. I took Penny for a walk around the campground and then we climbed up into the sleeping area for bed.

Day 7: Lake Roosevelt to Home

I woke up before dawn, as usual. I had coffee while Penny slept in. I caught up on Twitter and did the word puzzle I try to start each morning with. Each morning I have an Internet connection, anyway. It’s a daily puzzle and I’ve done it faithfully every day for the past 70+ days.

When it got light, I took Penny for a walk down on the beach. I let her loose to run on the sand. She loves the beach.

Dawn at Lake Roosevelt
Dawn at Lake Roosevelt.

It was quiet and very pleasant. I watched the sun rise and saw the first light hit hillsides beyond the dam. I wished I had my boat with me. I thought about boat camping. I had recently bought a new tent that would give me, Penny, and even a companion plenty of space to camp in and was eager to use it along a lake or river.

Back at camp, I made breakfast and ate it on the back steps. Other campers were waking. There was no sign of life from the tents at the loud family’s camp. I wondered if the husband or wife had killed the family during the night.

I did the dishes and went through my morning routine. By that time, the loud family was awake and breaking camp. They sure didn’t look like happy people. I wonder sometimes why people bother going on vacation when they spend so much time fighting with each other and staring at their phones.

Penny and I went out for another walk. Although I’d only planned to walk around the campground, I found a “nature trail” and started up that. It was a dirt path that climbed up a hillside with numbered markers along the way that had likely, at one time, corresponded to points on a self-guided tour. There were a few benches along the way that looked like good places to stop and look out at the lake and contemplate life. I stopped at the one at the top of the hill. There were nice views from up there of the lake and campground. The trail continued and we followed it, not sure where it would lead us. It wound up bringing us back down to the campground, no far from our site.

Lake Roosevelt
A view of Lake Roosevelt from the highest point on the trail.

The loud family was gone. There was an inflated beach ball under my truck. I fished it out and gave it to a family with small kids that was camped nearby. The one that spoke English thanked me and handed it off to two young girls who immediately started playing with it. The rest seemed to speak Russian.

I was already ready to go. So I hopped into the truck, started up, and asked Google to show me the quickest way home.

I did stop at the dump station on the way out to dump the holding tanks. I have a very convenient place to dump at home, right near the door to the garage where the camper lives. But I’d rather dump before going home. Then I can add a gallon of clean water and chemicals to the tank and let it slosh around in a sort of cleaning cycle on the way home. It’s a losing battle to keep the tank sensors clean but I haven’t given up. This is just one strategy in my fight.

Our route home took us down the east side of Banks Lake, over the dam at Coulee City, and then up onto the Waterville Plateau. I made a quick stop to look at a vintage pull trailer in Waterville where I chatted at length with a man who’d stopped to do the same thing. Then we descended down to Orondo. I stopped at Katy Bee’s farmstand-turned-cafe for lunch and an ice cream. From there, it was less than 30 minute to get home.

My first vacation for the season was over.

The Eclipse Trip Day 4: The Travel and Wine Tasting Day

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I visit Walla Walla, get a good, hot shower, and have a great dinner.

I slept until nearly six — which is late for me — and woke up feeling refreshed. The first thing I did was look out my side window to see if my neighbors were up and about; that would determine how loud I could be. But they were gone.

All traces of them were gone.

Somehow, they’d managed to pack up three tents and a bunch of other gear into their cars and drive off while I was sleeping less than 100 feet away. How was that possible?

My sleeping pattern is regular. I sleep like the dead for the first three to four hours every night. You could set a bomb off next to me and I’m unlikely to wake. For the rest of the night, however, I’m a very light sleeper. So unless they packed up and left without sleeping there, they somehow managed to pack up and leave so quietly that I didn’t hear them. If that’s the case, thank you mystery campers.

The site on the other side of me just had a pickup truck parked in it. There hadn’t been a sign of people since I arrived. I had begun to think that the truck’s owner had parked there and then just wandered off into the woods to camp. Beyond them was a camping van with a tall, skinny tent — the kind often used for a bathroom or shower. Those people were gone, too. The guy at the far end was still there with no sign of life in his campsite.

So I opened the door and let Penny out to do her business. And then I got to work making coffee. She was back before the water had boiled.

I spent the next two hours working on my Day 3 blog post. There was no signal at all in my campsite, so posting it was not an option. When I was finished with that, I made a breakfast of bacon and eggs. Then I spent some time planning my day.

I knew I wanted to end up in Walla Walla for some wine tasting. If you’re not familiar with it, Walla Walla is one of the AVAs (basically, wine production regions) in Washington. It has dozens of wineries. (Too many, if you ask me.) I could just continue up 395 to Pendleton and follow Route 11 north from there. But I wanted to do some exploring along the way and tracing my path back to Pendleton would not accomplish that. I saw a place called Lehman Hot Springs on a side road that went east to La Grande and thought that might make an interesting stop along the way. From La Grande, I’d head north and then come down the Blue Mountains southeast of Walla Walla.

Campsite
My campsite in the tiny 5-site campground. I think that pile of wood used to be a picnic table.

Plan made, I cleaned up my breakfast mess, got dressed, and stowed my loose belongings. By this time everyone else in the campground had gone. Even the pickup truck; apparently two people had been sleeping in it. (Compared to everyone else there, I was sleeping in the Ritz.)

It was about nine when I headed out. That’s when I discovered that the creek that went past the campground was actually the North Fork of the John Day River.

The Drive

On Route 395, I passed the parking area I’d spent my first night on the road in. Three miles later, I reached the campground that had been full; I pulled in to take a look around. It was a nice place with a creek running through it and still half full. It’s in the Ukiah-Dale Forest State Scenic Corridor, in case you want to look it up.

I turned right on Route 244 and, a few miles later, passed through the sad little town of Ukiah, OR. (Sorry folks, but I just report it as I see it.) Not much going on there, but there were about 20 motorcycles. Big cruisers, mostly. I kept going. The road continued into rolling hills with patches of forest. It was a very pleasant drive. For most of the way, I saw traces of an old railroad bed that predated the road. I have an eye for these things — old railroad or road right-of-ways — and it always gets me wondering where the train (in this case) went and why they removed its tracks.

I climbed up into the forest. There were now national forest roads going off into the woods on either side of me. Plenty of camping opportunities if I was looking for them. It was after I crossed the county line that I consulted the map again. Thats when I realized that I’d passed the Hot Springs. There hadn’t even been a sign. Just another point on a map that barely existed.

I kept going.

A while later, Route 244 dumped me onto I-84, where I definitely did not want to be. There wasn’t much of a choice, though. I followed it east and after a quick side trip to see a historic bridge, got off at the first exit in La Grande.

Perry Arch Bridge
The Perry Arch Bridge near La Grande.

I had decided about 40 miles earlier that what I really wanted was ice cream. So imagine my joy when the first business I encountered on my way into town was an old-style ice cream/hamburger joint. I slid into a parking space out front, cracked the windows, and went inside. I arrived after two big parties and waited while the woman at the counter took their orders. For a while, I considered having a burger, too, but by the time it was my turn to order, I’d settled on a rocky road waffle cone for me and a vanilla pup cup for Penny. $4 later, I was on my way back out to the truck. I didn’t realize until much later that it was the first money I’d spent on food during my entire trip so far.

I’d been noticing a sort of haziness in the air for most of the day and it wasn’t any better in La Grande. I followed the road through town, passing the Ford dealer where I’d bought my truck less than two years before, then turned left onto Route 82 heading northeast. I had to trick Google Maps into finding me the route I wanted by telling it I planned to stop in Elgin on the way. Otherwise, it tried to route me along I-84 through Pendleton. The road was fast and there wasn’t much traffic on it. The valley I was in was big and broad but the haziness really made it feel sort of closed in.

I turned left onto 204 at Elgin and headed northwest, back into the mountains. The road twisted and turned and I passed more than a few SUVs towing very small pull trailers. R-Pods seem to be pretty popular, although I don’t understand why. One of the models I passed had a narrow body with its wheels extending on either side of it. If the designers had built the body out over the wheels like most pull trailers, they could have added a foot of space on either side. For a 14-foot trailer, that’s 140 square feet of additional space. Go figure, huh?

I reached the community of Tollgate, which looked like a mountain retreat with homes on a small lake. There was a ski resort up there and lots of turnoffs into the forest for Sno-Parks. Not many people, though. No reason to stop, so I kept going.

A little while later, though, I passed a sign for a farm stand that had a magic word on it: Pies. I pulled into a parking lot in front of a tiny building called The Outpost. There were fresh vegetables outside — the absolute last thing I needed. Inside was a young woman at a little counter with pies behind her and handmade fragrant soaps on the other side of the room. The room smelled wonderful.

The Outpost
The Blue Mountain Outpost has fresh eggs, produce, and pies, as well as handmade soaps that smell really nice.

We chatted for a while as I smelled the soaps. I had to buy one, of course. I asked her which one she liked and she picked one up. I sniffed it and it smelled good. Then I asked about the pies. Peach, huckleberry, and peach-huckleberry. I picked the peach-huckleberry and paid for my purchases. When I picked it up, it was still warm from the oven.

Back on the road, I continued down the mountainside. After a few Google-directed turns, I found myself driving through Milton-Freewater.

I remembered the town mostly because back when I first drove through — on my midlife crisis road trip back in 2005 — there had been a lot of frog related stuff. I wondered how that was playing these days with the famous Pepe being taken as a symbol of the Alt-Right. But that day, when I drove through, I only saw a frog in two places: on a very old sign near the outskirts of town and in a statue in town. They had obviously moved on from frogs in town and I thought that was a good thing.

I continued north on Route 12 toward Walla Walla. For a while, my rig was one of three Lance truck campers heading that way. We were all bunched up at traffic lights more than once. Onlookers probably thought we were all together. But when we got to Walla Walla, I turned off into town and they kept going.

I stopped at the Chamber of Commerce. I wanted to ask about parking for the night. I had stayed at two different campgrounds in town in the past and had no idea whether they still existed. I also wanted to ask about wine tasting. But the only guy in the Chamber of Commerce was clueless about both things. Apparently, he was new to town. I knew more about the town than he did — and I hadn’t been there for four years.

I left with a wine tourist magazine that listed all the local wineries — did I mention there were a lot of them? — and a brochure for Palouse Falls, where I hoped to spend the night. I’d also left a message at the RV park closest to town and had called the historic Marcus Whitman Hotel about getting a room. I decided that $200 including tax and a $30 pet fee was more than I wanted to spend. (I’m certain I’d stayed there with Penny and a friend a few years back and did not spend that much.)

I drove the few blocks into town and parked on a side street. (I really do love the parking flexibility T2 offers.) That’s when I realized that there could be more hotels within walking distance of downtown. I wound up finding a room at the Red Lion Inn only two blocks away for a much more reasonable $70/night. I drove right over and checked in.

By this time, it was 3 PM. I figured that there was a chance that a lot of the downtown shops and wineries would close at 5 or 6. So rather than go up to our room, Penny and I took a walk up and down Main Street.

Wine and Dinner in Walla Walla

Walla Walla is a really nice town. It’s a lot like Wenatchee, but it has a lot more going for it in terms of wine tasting rooms, restaurants, and shops. The downtown is vibrant and was relatively busy, even on that Tuesday afternoon. I was sad to see that the shop with the walk-in, glass-sided cheese closet had closed down, but glad to see T. Macarrone’s, a favorite restaurant of mine, was still open. I wasn’t in the mood to shop or taste wine, though. I think it was the weather; the heat, light humidity, and thickness in the air from smoke was taking its toll on me.

Still, I did manage to squeeze in a tasting on my way back to the hotel. It was the brand new tasting room for Bledsoe. It was a really nice space, tastefully designed with big windows looking out onto the street from its corner. Although the tasting room was not normally open on Tuesdays, the girl in there was pouring for another customer and didn’t mind pouring for me.

To say I was not impressed was an understatement. The four wines — which started at $40/bottle — had definitely been released too early. I tried not to be critical — after all, it could be my palate that was mistaken. The wines all tasted different but all had that bite that’s common with wines that haven’t been aged enough.

While I was tasting, the girl at the counter gave me some background information about the winery. It had “split off” from another winery called Doubleback that was also in the area. Both wineries were run by the same people but they had two lines of wine and two tasting rooms. I tried to figure out why someone would do that and finally realized that it was a marketing scheme. Hell, it was from the Marketing 101 class I’d taken in college. To maximize exposure of your products, make as many versions of it as the market will support. In this case, they’d taken one winery and instead of selling six or ten different wines under that name, they were selling eight or twelve wines under two different names. Two tasting rooms. Twice the exposure. Of course, this is just a theory. The way Google works these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from Bledsoe or Doubleback found this blog post and set me straight.

I did buy a bottle of wine, though. The tasting rooms in Walla Walla all have a tasting fee that can be applied to a purchase. I wasn’t interested in spending $10 for four tastes of disappointing wine. Instead, I’d spend $40 and take home a bottle I thought was least offensive. I figured I’d share it with people knowledgeable about wine to see what they thought. Maybe they’d educate me.

From there, I went right back to the hotel. I fetched some clothes and toiletries and Penny supplies out of the truck and camper, locked everything up, and went up to my room. This part of the hotel was in an obviously old motel building that had been nicely refinished. The walls were painted cinderblock and because they’d been painted in bright colors — yellow and purple (really!) — the place looked kind of hip. There were two queen beds with their blankets wrapped in sheets. (I really like when they do that.) The pillows were big and fluffy. There was a table and chairs, a fridge in the cabinet, and even a balcony overlooking the pool.

I made reservations for 6 at T Macarrone’s, then set Penny up with food and water, showered, and got ready to go. I left a little after 5, walking back into town alone.

Feeling more refreshed, I stopped for another tasting, this time at Henry Earl. What a difference! These wines were quite good — at least more to my taste — and I wound up buying three bottles. An interesting thing about this winery: the grapes come from the Red Mountain and Wahluke Slope areas of Washington state, making me wonder why they had a tasting room in Walla Walla.

Again, it’s all marketing. First there was Napa and Sonoma Valleys in California, producing wine, offering tastings at the wineries, and getting an audience for what they made. I was in Napa back in the 1980s and it was a great place to explore wines. At each stop, you’d get an opportunity to not only taste wine, but have a production or history tour of the winery. There was no tasting fee. It was a service they offered to attract new customers. At the tasting bar, you could chat with someone knowledgable about the wine — maybe even the winemaker. Fast-forward to 2013, when I returned with some friends. Now tasting was a business, with tasting fees ranging from $10 to $20 per person and advance tickets needed for the few wineries that offered tours. The tasting bar was staffed by sales people who often only knew what they’d been told about the wine. And there were dozens and dozens of wineries, many of which had absolutely no participation in the growing of grapes.

In Washington state, it’s the same thing, but more insidious. Yes, there are some great wineries, including estate wineries, throughout the Columbia Valley, Walla Walla, Chelan, and the Red Mountain area. But since tourists are apparently too lazy to drive out to the wineries these days, winery owners have opened tasting rooms in centralized areas. Downtown Walla Walla is one of those areas. So is Woodinville — conveniently placed near Seattle to make it easier for city folks to go wine tasting without actually visiting a winery. They don’t grow many (or any?) grapes or make much (or any?) wine in Woodinville, yet people think of that as “wine country.” It’s a real shame. There’s nothing quite like visiting an actual winery and chatting with a winemaker, especially when you’re part of a group of people who truly understand and appreciate wine and want to learn all they can.

That said, I should have made more of an effort to get out to the actual wineries the Walla Walla area. But I think I’ll try again another time, hopefully with a wine tasting buddy.

Tuna Crudo
Corn Soup
Seared Duck Breast
My dinner, in three courses.

At T Macarrone’s, I sat at the bar. I’d been told their cocktails were good and the bartender helped me pair two different cocktails to my first two courses of dinner. The first one was a somewhat spicy Thai concoction that I liked a lot. It went well with the Tuna Crudo appetizer. The second one was some sort of margarita that I liked a little less; I had that with a creamy Sweet Corn Soup. I had the Seared Duck Breast (which I had them cook more than just seared) for dinner with a glass of wine that I was unable to finish. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it — I did! — it was just that I worried about being able to walk the four blocks back to my hotel if I kept drinking. I skipped dessert because I was absolutely stuffed.

Back at the hotel, I made some finishing touches on my Day 3 blog post and got it online. I spent some time taking care of email and responding to text messages that had come in while I was off the grid.

When I took Penny out for her last walk of the evening, we went to the truck to fetch a few things I’d forgotten, along with that pie. I had a nice slice before going to bed — it was delicious! — and put the rest of it in my hotel room fridge with my truck keys so I wouldn’t forget it.